To improve safety, reduce tire wear, and increase fuel economy, certain classes of motor vehicles are required or soon will be required by statute to have tire pressure monitoring systems. Each tire at each location on the motor vehicle has a pressure which is communicated as pressure data to the driver. A pressure sensor and other associated circuitry may be specific to each wheel and the tire mounted thereon. It is generally necessary to be able to identify which sensor reading is coming from which location on the motor vehicle. The problem of associating tires and tire pressure sensors with tire locations is complicated by the fact that tires may be moved from one location to another, such as in tire rotation, and the original associations made meaningless. Most conventional methods of relearning associations between tires and tire locations require special tools or addition of interrogation devices at each tire location, thereby increasing the cost of the tire monitor.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a tire pressure monitoring system adapted to relearn associations between tire pressure sensors and tire locations. In addition, it is desirable to reduce the amount of hardware that is added to the motor vehicle to achieve relearning and to eliminate the need for specialized tools in the relearning process. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.